Letting agencies only have guarantor processes now

[decionsdecisions62]

Has anyone else experienced this situation with rental agencies that they no longer contract just with the young person and check bank statements but that they now only default to asking for a guarantor?

It feels totally wrong and corrupt to me. I wondered how widespread it is. Plus what about the kids whose parents are not happy to sign to guarantor £600 rent a month?

I worked in letting for a few years around a decade ago. A lot of the times, they'll develop their policies in response to trends i.e. if more and more tenancies with young people are going wrong, they'll either avoid letting to them or introduce blanket requirements like guarantors. Affordability checks and references are no guarantee of a successful tenancy.

Blanket policies aren't uncommon when a certain type of let becomes consistently problematic. It's why a lot of agencies and landlords try to avoid single person hosing benefit claims whether right or wrong.

For the record, I'm not condoning it. I think treating people as a category rather than an individual creates a lot of pre-judgement and negativity towards people. It's one of the reasons I don't work in the sector any more.